6.  The applicant was born in Tajikistan in 1979. In recent years he has lived most of the time in Russia, in the Moscow Region. He is currently detained in the Lukhovitsy Detention Centre for Aliens in the Moscow Region.
7.  The applicant lived in Tajikistan. His family owned a fruit farm near the town of Isfara in Tajikistan and about 10 hectares of orchards. They dried fruits and exported them to Russia. In 2002 the applicant moved to Russia, where he sold dried fruit at a market near Moscow. Every year he returned for two or three months to Tajikistan and helped his relatives with the harvest. He also sent money to his home town. He states that he has two wives: his first wife lives in Tajikistan with his children; his second wife moved to Russia, but after the applicant’s arrest (see paragraph 21 below) returned to Tajikistan.
8.  According to the applicant, members of his family were victims of politically motivated persecution in Tajikistan. Thus, the applicant’s elder brother, Barot, took part in the 1992-95 civil war in Tajikistan on the opposition side. In the applicant’s words, Barot was one of the leaders of the United Tajik Opposition. He was arrested in 1995. Following his arrest, thousands of people, including members of the applicant’s family, demonstrated on the streets of Isfara demanding his release. The police used firearms while dispersing the demonstration. In the years which followed, the applicant’s brother was tried and sentenced for anti-constitutional conspiracy, first in 1997 and then again in 2003. According to the applicant, Barot told him that he had been tortured while in detention.
9.  The applicant alleged that the Tajikistani authorities continued to persecute his family. On several occasions their family house was searched in the night; the applicant and his wife had to sleep fully dressed in fear of being apprehended. The authorities repeatedly and arbitrarily disconnected water and electricity supplies from his house. The local law-enforcement officers extorted money from him and forced the applicant to pay them part of his earnings in Russia. In addition, in 2007 the applicant had a quarrel with a local police officer.
10.  According to the applicant’s submissions, during his stays in Tajikistan he attended some opposition political gatherings.
11.  In November 2009 (the exact date of his arrival was disputed in the domestic proceedings in Russia) he arrived in Moscow from Tajikistan for the last time and started working at the Dorgomilovskiy food market in Moscow. In 2009 the applicant joined an opposition movement, Vatandor (“The Patriots”), which united Tajikistani nationals living abroad and wishing to see certain reforms in the country. The applicant took part in meetings of Vatandor members in Russia. The applicant’s name was put on the membership list of that organisation; however, he was not given any documents confirming his membership of Vatandor.
12.  On 26 March 2009 the Tajikistani authorities opened a criminal case against the applicant. He was accused of anti-government armed conspiracy. Specifically, the applicant was accused of being a member of several opposition movements responsible for armed riots – first, the “Bay’at” group and then the “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan” (“the IMU”). His brother Barot was sentenced to imprisonment twice for membership of those groups and involvement in the riots. According to the Tajikistani authorities, in October 2007 the applicant took part in the construction of a military base in the mountains in Kyrgyzstan, near the border with Tajikistan, where the IMU kept firearms and ammunition. He took an oath of allegiance to the movement. The applicant was also involved in propagating the ideas of the movement amongst local youth.
13.  On 30 March 2009 a formal statement of charges was issued against the applicant. He was additionally charged with supporting the IMU with the money he earned in Russia. The applicant was also accused of being involved in dealing in stolen cars in Moscow and the forgery of car documents. He sent the proceeds of this activity to Tajikistan to finance subversive activities there.
14.  The applicant noted that there were two versions of the decision of 26 March 2009 to open a criminal case against him, as well as of the statement of charges of 30 March 2009. One version of the documents contained information apparently concerning another presumed member of the opposition, a Mr A. Abdulkhalikov. Furthermore, one version of the statement of charges against the applicant mentioned “stolen cars”, “forged documents” and “financing terrorist activities”, whereas another version did not contain that information.
15.  On 30 March 2009 the Tajikistani authorities ordered the applicant’s detention on remand in absentia. In the detention order personal data of the applicant contained information apparently concerning Mr Abdulkhalikov. The detention order did not mention stolen cars, forged documents, or financing of terrorist activities.
16.  On 22 March 2010 the Tajikistani authorities placed the applicant’s name on the international wanted list. In the international search request thus created the Tajikistani authorities placed the applicant’s own name in the column concerning his presumed accomplices.
17.  On 3 September 2010, in the town of Khudjand, three police officers were killed and several people wounded in a terrorist attack. On 6 December 2010, in a press interview concerning the applicant’s arrest in Russia (see paragraph 21 below), the Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan mentioned the applicant as one of the perpetrators of that terrorist attack. The applicant was defined as amir (the leader) of a terrorist cell operating from Russian territory.
18.  In 2009-10 other suspected participants in the conspiracy were arrested in Tajikistan and stood trial there. Fifty-three people were convicted. One of them, Mr. Ismanov, was convicted inter alia of setting up “criminal contacts” with the applicant, and of transmitting “prohibited information” from the applicant in Russia to Tajikistan.
19.  During the trial several of the accused complained to the court of ill‑treatment by law-enforcement officers in the course of the preliminary investigation. The applicant referred to the case of Mr I. Boboyev, who died during questioning at the police station in the applicant’s home town, and who he stated was his cousin. The applicant also cited the case of Mr S. Marufov, a member of the Islamic Revival Party, who he said had been tortured to death by police officers in the applicant’s home town. The applicant lastly stated that a Mr I. Ismanov had been tortured. The wife of Mr Ismanov had seen the traces of torture, and was prepared to testify to it before the national court, but the court refused to hear her.
20.  On 8 December 2010 the Tajikistani authorities sent an extradition request to the Russian authorities. The extradition request was accompanied by assurances that the applicant would not be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment. He would have all opportunities to defend himself in Tajikistan, including the right to legal assistance. He would not be persecuted on political grounds, or because of his race, religion, nationality or political views. In addition, assurances were given that the applicant would be prosecuted only in relation to the crimes mentioned in the extradition request, that he would be able to leave Tajikistan freely after standing trial and serving a sentence, and that he would not be expelled, transferred or extradited to a third State without the Russian authorities’ consent.
21.  On 3 November 2010 the applicant was arrested in the town of Dolgoprudniy in the Moscow Region, in connection with the international search warrant against him. He was questioned by the officers of the anti‑extremism department of the Russian police.
22.  During the questioning he explained that he had come to Russia in November 2008 for work and that he had not applied for Russian nationality or sought political asylum. His documents were not in order; he claimed that he had lost his Tajikistani passport. The applicant alleged that his criminal prosecution in Tajikistan was politically motivated because of his membership of the Vatandor opposition movement.
23.  On 4 November 2010 the Dolgoprudniy Town Court remanded the applicant in custody pending examination of the extradition request.
24.  On 13 December 2010 the applicant requested the General Prosecutor’s office not to extradite him to Tajikistan, referring to imminent risk of ill-treatment there. He relied on reported cases of torture by law‑enforcement agencies in Tajikistan and the relevant case-law of the Court. The applicant argued that, being connected to the political opposition, he belonged to a vulnerable group and that his criminal prosecution in Tajikistan was politically motivated.
25.  On 22 December 2010 the Dolgoprudniy Town Court extended the period of the applicant’s detention pending extradition until 3 April 2011.
26.  On 25 December 2010 the applicant appealed, claiming in particular, that his detention was not justified, because the asylum proceedings he had initiated earlier (see paragraph 38 below) had a suspensive effect and he could not have been extradited before the completion of those proceedings. Therefore, there was no reason to detain him.
27.  On 28 December 2010 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia informed the General Prosecutor’s Office that they did not see any obstacles to the extradition of the applicant to Tajikistan.
28.  On 14 January 2011 the Moscow Regional Prosecutor wrote a letter to the immigration authority in connection with the applicant’s request for asylum. In this letter he asked the Migration Authority to keep him informed of developments in the applicant’s case, and indicated that the applicant’s extradition was “under the control of the President of the Russian Federation”.
29.  On 27 January 2011 the Federal Security Service informed the General Prosecutor’s Office that they did not object to the extradition of the applicant to Tajikistan.
30.  On 8 February 2011 the applicant’s appeal was examined and dismissed by the Moscow Regional Court.
31.  On 29 March 2011 the Dolgoprudniy District Court extended the applicant’s detention until 3 July 2011. On 1 April 2011 the applicant appealed against the extension. The applicant alleged, in particular, that if extradited he could be subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. On 19 April 2011 the Moscow Regional Court confirmed the extension of the applicant’s detention.
32.  On 23 June 2011 the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia decided to extradite the applicant to Tajikistan.
33.  On 29 June 2011 the applicant was informed of that decision. On the same day the Dolgoprudniy Town Court decided to extend the applicant’s detention pending extradition until 3 November 2011.
34.  On 30 June 2011 the applicant appealed against the extradition order.
35.  On 2 July 2011 the applicant appealed against the extension of his detention.
36.  On 13 July 2011 Amnesty International issued a statement expressing concerns about the possible extradition of the applicant to Tajikistan.
37. On 16 July 2011 the Moscow Regional Court upheld the extension of the applicant’s detention.
38.  On 10 November 2010 the applicant applied for asylum in Russia. In the application form he indicated that he belonged to the Vatandor opposition political movement. During the asylum interview he specified that he was not an active member of Vatandor and did not attend their gatherings, but simply “shared their political views”.
39.  On 2 December 2010 he supplemented his application for asylum and put forward the same arguments as in the extradition proceedings.
40.  On 23 March 2011 his application for asylum was refused by the Migration Authority (“the MA”), on the ground that the applicant’s fears of persecution on political grounds in his home country were unfounded. He was formally notified of that decision on 5 April 2011. The MA concluded that the applicant had committed crimes on the territory of Tajikistan. The applicant belonged to organisations which had been banned by a decision of the Supreme Court of Tajikistan in 1993; therefore, his presence at the demonstration in 1995 in support of his arrested brother had been of itself a criminal act. The applicant’s allegation that one-third of the population of the town of Isfara had been prosecuted for their political views was, in the view of the MA, absurd, since there were not enough police officers in Tajikistan to prosecute so many people. The MA also concluded that the applicant’s membership of Vatandor was merely passive, and therefore that he was not at risk of ill-treatment in this connection. The MA found, in particular, that “it was certain that the applicant did not belong to any political, religious or civic organisations”.
41.  On 25 April 2011 the applicant appealed, putting forward the same arguments as in the extradition proceedings.
42.  On 17 June 2011 the applicant’s appeal against that decision was rejected by the Federal Migration Service.
43.  On 9 September 2011 the Basmanniy District Court of Moscow dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of the MA not to grant him the refugee status in Russia.
44.  The District Court noted, in particular, that in the previous ten years he had been travelling freely between Russia and Tajikistan, and that every year he returned to Tajikistan to visit his relatives in Isfara. The applicant had applied for asylum only after his arrest in Russia and not immediately at border control. The applicant’s closest relatives lived in Tajikistan undisturbed and did not leave the country. The court concluded that this demonstrated that the applicant had not been a victim of political persecution as he alleged.
45.  As regards the applicant’s membership of Vatandor and his brother being a former leader of the United Tajik Opposition, the court noted that the applicant’s political involvement was not official, that he only shared their political opinions and did not attend meetings, nor did he engage in agitation. The mere fact that he had political views which were different from the government’s official position did not give him the right to claim asylum.
46.  The court further noted that Tajikistan was a member of many international conventions, had an ombudsman, and respected human rights. As regards the references to other sources which cast doubt in Tajikistan’s human rights record, that information had been obtained from the mass media, was opinionated, and was therefore not objective.
47.  The court held that he had not produced sufficient evidence of the risk of persecution for political reasons at home, and that Tajikistan complied with its international obligations in the human rights area.
48.  The applicant appealed. On 30 November 2011 the Moscow City Court upheld the judgment on appeal in a summary fashion.
49.  On 16 September 2011 the Moscow Regional Court examined the applicant’s appeal against the extradition order. At the hearing the applicant was represented by a lawyer of his choice. The applicant denied committing the offences imputed to him and presented an alibi. The defence also claimed that if extradited to Tajikistan the applicant would be tortured, as many others accused of “religious extremism” had been. The defence referred in this respect to the relevant case-law of the Court and to numerous reports of international human rights NGOs and UN bodies competent in the field. The applicant also claimed that he had learned about the criminal prosecution against him only at the moment of his arrest in Russia. He also referred to numerous inconsistencies in the documents submitted in support of the extradition request by the Tajikistani authorities (see paragraphs 14-16 above).
50.  The prosecution did not contest that the applicant belonged to the opposition movement and had been present at political gatherings. However, they drew the court’s attention to numerous inconsistencies in his submissions, cast doubt on the reliability of the sources of information relied on by the applicant, and stressed that the applicant was involved in a terrorist organisation.
51.  Having heard the parties, the Regional Court upheld the extradition order. The Moscow Regional Court’s reasoning can be summarised as follows. The court observed that the applicant faced serious criminal accusations and that the acts imputed to him would in principle qualify as “crimes” under Russian law. It was not the task of the Russian court to establish whether the applicant was guilty of the impugned crimes. The court held that the inconsistencies in the Tajikistani documents were “technical errors” and did not affect the validity of the extradition request.
52.  It was impossible for the court to establish when exactly the applicant had entered the territory of Russia for the last time, since the applicant’s own submissions in this respect were inconsistent, and there was no official information on the matter. However, the court found that it certainly had not been in November 2009, as the applicant had alleged. According to his original statement to the prosecutor, the applicant had been residing permanently in Russia since 2008. He had not applied for political asylum in Russia before his arrest. Although the applicant had lost his passport in 2010, he did not contact the embassy of Tajikistan to obtain a new one. During the interview the applicant was unable to indicate his exact address in Russia.
53.  The applicant had a family in Tajikistan, which included his brother’s family and his first wife and children. They all lived in their family house. He regularly spoke to them on the telephone, and it was impossible that they would not tell him about the criminal prosecution. The court concluded that the applicant had been living in Russia permanently since 2008, that he had been aware of the criminal proceedings against him in Tajikistan, and that he had been hiding from the Tajikistani authorities in Russia.
54.  The court did not find any evidence that the applicant’s case was “political”. At the first questioning he mentioned that he had come to Russia to find work, not out of fear of persecution. At the hearing the applicant stated that he had attended a political gathering in 1995, but that his role had been limited to giving a lift in a car to his relatives and taking them to the venue of the gathering. He denied having been involved in any political anti-governmental activity in Tajikistan. His activity in the Vatandor political movement was minimal: he simply shared their political opinions. The court observed that the applicant’s brother, Mr B. Azimov, was serving a prison sentence in Tajikistan; however, other members of his family, including his elder brother Mr R. Azimov, were all living in Tajikistan. The applicant’s first wife lived in Tajikistan with their five children and his second wife had been able to leave Tajikistan freely and come to Russia. His family owned ten hectares of orchards near a recreational zone. He was able for many years to maintain himself and his family with his earnings from selling dried fruit in Russia. The authorities thus did not interfere with his business interests or those of his family, despite the allegedly political underpinning of the case against him. His own testimony about the political nature of the prosecution was inconsistent. He first stated that the criminal case against him resulted from personal animosity between him and the chief of the local police following a quarrel in a café. Later in the court proceedings the applicant suggested that the criminal prosecution had been instituted so that his family’s land could be taken away.
55.  The court also examined letters received from Amnesty International in support of the applicant’s cause, and noted that they did not contain anything which would point to the existence of a risk of ill-treatment to him personally.
56.  The court finally analysed the institutional and legislative guarantees against ill-treatment which existed in Tajikistan, as well as its international obligations, and concluded that they were sufficient to guarantee that the applicant would not be subjected to any ill-treatment.
57.  On 1 November 2011 the Moscow Regional Court ruled that the applicant’s detention would not be extended pending extradition, because the period of the applicant’s detention had reached the maximum established by law (twelve months). At the same time, the court indicated that since the applicant had been residing in Russia without papers, he could have been subjected to expulsion (administrative removal) proceedings and detained on that ground.
58.  On 9 November 2011 the Supreme Court confirmed the validity of the extradition order and upheld the reasoning of the lower court.
59.  On 2 November 2011 the prosecutor’s office forwarded the relevant documents in respect of the applicant to the police, who drew up a report on his illegal stay in Russia, which amounted to an administrative offence under Article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offences (“the CAO”).
60.  On the same day, the Dolgoprudniy Town Court of the Moscow Region examined the case against the applicant and found him guilty. The court established that the applicant had unlawfully resided in Russia from February 2010 until his arrest on 3 November 2010 with a view to extradition. The court imposed an administrative fine on the applicant, ordered his expulsion (administrative removal) from Russia and placed him in detention pending expulsion because of the gravity of the offence and because the applicant had no stable income in Russia. No specific time-limit for the applicant’s detention was given by the court. The court did not address his arguments about the risk of ill-treatment in the event of his deportation to Tajikistan.
61.  On 3 November 2011 the public prosecutor ordered the applicant’s release from detention pending extradition, because the maximum term prescribed by law had expired. In the release order the prosecutor noted that an extradition check was in progress. The applicant was not released but was transferred to the Serpukhov Detention Centre for Aliens in the Moscow Region, according to the detention order issued in the course of the expulsion proceedings.
62.  On 6 November 2011 the applicant’s lawyers appealed against this order to the Moscow Regional Court. They submitted that the court had refused to consider the applicant’s arguments concerning the possibility of ill-treatment in Tajikistan.
63.  According to the applicant, during the night of 17 November 2011 he was visited in the detention centre by two police officers from the anti‑extremism department of the Ministry of Interior. They offered the applicant the opportunity to leave Russia for Tajikistan voluntarily, with a plane ticket provided by them. He was also photographed. It appears that the Dolgoprudniy Town prosecutor in charge of his case was not informed of that visit. Nor were the applicant’s lawyers informed thereof. The applicant declined the offer and was returned to his cell.
64.  On 22 November 2011 the Moscow Regional Court adjourned the hearing concerning the expulsion order due to the failure of one of the witnesses, a police officer who had issued the administrative offence report, to appear.
65.  On 6 December 2011 the Moscow Regional Court examined the appeal. The police officer did not appear at the hearing, but the court decided to proceed with the case. The applicant was not present at the hearing either, since the police had not arranged for him to be transferred from the detention centre to the court; however, his lawyer was present. According to the applicant’s lawyer, the judge told her that the court had no obligation to arrange for the applicant to attend in person. The court confirmed the validity of the expulsion and detention orders. The court did not address the arguments concerning the risk of the applicant being ill‑treated in Tajikistan. The court did not specify the period of the applicant’s detention with a view to expulsion.
66.  On 4 May 2012 the applicant was transferred to the Lukhovitsy Detention Centre for Aliens in the Moscow Region.
67.  On 1 August 2012, at the applicant’s representative’s request, the Russian Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed the following opinion on the risk of ill-treatment the applicant faces in Tajikistan:
“In accordance with numerous reports of international organisations as well as generally accessible information on the Republic of Tajikistan, because of mass violations of human rights and basic principles of international law by the Tajikistani authorities, including the principle of prohibition of torture, in particular, widespread practices of torture and ill-treatment by law-enforcement bodies, especially to extract confessions in criminal proceedings, violations of fair trial provisions, such as denial of access to legal counsel and lack of an independent judiciary, taking into account the fact that in Tajikistan the applicant is to be prosecuted in connection with criminal offences, the UN Refugee Agency considers that there exists a real risk of torture for the applicant in the event of his expulsion to Tajikistan.”